The Empress Hotel and Butchart Gardens are well known to North Olympic Peninsula residents as attractions in Victoria, and many have probably seen them one time or another.
But what do our Canadian neighbors know about the North Olympic Peninsula, separated from them merely by 15 miles of water?
According to a study released earlier this month and funded by the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission, not very much.
200 Canadians surveyed
For the study, Roger Barnes Marketing Planning interviewed 200 residents of Victoria and elsewhere on South Vancouver Island who have taken a nonbusiness related trip in the last year.
Seventy-two of the people surveyed live in Victoria.
Out of the survey group, 102 people (51 percent) said they didn’t know anything about the Peninsula and 30 people (15 percent) said they have not heard of Port Angeles — the city that shares two ferries with Victoria and is the sole access route to this side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
About 20 said they have heard of Port Townsend.
Few remembered PA
While 92 people said they have been to the Peninsula one time or another, only 16 of them (18 percent) said that they have heard of Port Angeles, even though they had been through the city before on their way to and from the ferries.
Of those 92 people, 38 said they were just passing through the Peninsula when they visited.
To Olympic Visitor Bureau Executive Director Diane Schostak, who is taking a glass-half-full approach to the study, the results were nothing surprising.
“There’s a lot of opportunity here,” she said.
“There’s plenty of room to tell our story and tell it the way we want to tell it.”
The tourism commission, which the visitor bureau is a member of, isn’t wasting any time.
Show Victoria
At its Nov. 5 meeting, the commission made a new tourism marketing committee to improve efforts to show Victorians what the Peninsula has to offer.
The committee is made up of Schostak, city of Port Townsend marketer Christina Pivarnik, Port Hadlock Chamber of Commerce representative Frances Rawski, visitor bureau board member Pam Russell, Neah Bay Chamber of Commerce representative Meri Parker and Port Angeles City Manager Kent Myers.
Myers, who is making increasing the number of Victoria residents visiting Port Angeles a personal goal of his, said he is also not surprised by the study’s results.
“They just do not have a general understanding of Port Angeles, who we are and what we have to offer,” he said.
Myers said he has visited Victoria about five times since he began his tenure as city manager last January.
Each time he has met with the Canadian city’s mayor, city manager and business leaders about improving cross-Strait tourism, he said.
Myers said that, as the study reflects, they know very little about the Olympic National Park, the Olympic Discovery Trail, local casinos and wineries.
Hurricane Ridge
Of the attractions on the Peninsula, Hurricane Ridge was the most well-known. Thirty-four people (17 percent) said they have heard of it.
But other park locations, such as hot springs, Hoh Rain Forest, and beaches were recognized by fewer than 6 percent of the people surveyed.
Myers and Schostak both said the purpose of the committee is to create a long-term marketing plan for Victoria and elsewhere on South Vancouver Island.
Of course, there has been some marketing in Victoria, from both public entities and local companies, but it has been too sporadic, they said.
“There’s been efforts,” Schostak said, “but not really a coordinated, comprehensive, long-range plan.
“And that’s what we are looking to put together.”
Something new that could be tried is to actually host an event in Victoria that promotes local attractions rather than more traditional forms of advertising, she said.
Myers said he and Schostak will travel to Victoria in January to promote the Peninsula.
Any new advertising campaigns would be paid for with lodging tax revenue from across the Peninsula.
Getting more Vanoucer Island residents to cross the Strait shouldn’t be too difficult a goal to accomplish, Schostak said, since most of the Canadians surveyed like spending time on their trips outdoors.
“We are also going to have to inspire them to get them off of the island and do some exploring,” she said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
